Things That I Will Ban When I Rule The World.

I’m sitting there, ass glued firmly to the couch cushions, television on for background noise, baby happily babbling in his Exersaucer, and all of a sudden a female voice breaks into my thoughts:

“I have genital herpes” she confesses to me.

The camera pans to her partner, “and I don’t” he confidently informs us.

The commercial goes on and on while I sit there completely horrified, jaw gently grazing the cat-hair covered carpet. Why, oh why do I need to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to erase that image from my already addled mind?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we need to pretend like STD’s don’t happen by shushing it up (Lord knows Aunt Becky has seen more STD’s than you have.)(Because I’m a NURSE, you pervert!) and shaming those who have them into institutions or anything, not at all. Hell, plenty of people have them, live with them, while others have managed to barely dodge that bullet, and I don’t think that it’s something to be ashamed about.

I just don’t need my Oprah interrupted by having to hear about and subsequently imagine sores on your flipping meat curtains.

Before you flog me for being insensitive to those who have herpes, let me assure you I also don’t really care to have my day interrupted by ads promising to rid me of that pesky yeasty discharge, freshen up the old curtains with a vinegar douche, or make sure I don’t piss myself in public anymore.

*ahem*

I kid, I kid.

I’m not going to pretend I haven’t dealt with some delicate conditions of my privates over the years. Hell, I’ve even gleefully documented When Monistat Attacks, went to the hospital after I peed my pants, TWICE but none of these things have put me on your television set. Sure, I talk about these delicate conditions on my blog, but I assure you that no one from Depends, Valtrex, or generic Monistat is paying me a single dime for writing this. In fact, I’m almost certain they’d pay me NOT to write this.

Alas, I digress.

But seriously, could we PLEASE put a ban on having to watch people talk about the state of their junk on television? Because OBVIOUSLY.

So dish, The Internet. What would YOU ban (besides Your Aunt Becky from polluting The Internet, because have you HEARD of a PEN NAME?)?

*Lest you think I’m a complete ass, I also cannot watch the ASPCA ones with the sad music in them because I cry. every. time. and then I want to adopt all the animals on the planet, even though my dog, Auggie, eats poo and there’s very little grosser than a dog that eats poo so WHY would I want another dog that might eat poo? (answer: I wouldn’t)

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Other places you’ll find Your Aunt Becky today if you care to look (also, I am humping all of you who have visited me elsewhere. THANK YOU.)

I’m discussing my New Years Resolution over at Toy With Me, and while it’s not one of my racier posts, it’s one I’m particularly proud of because it’s honest and real and true and sometimes that’s what matters.

98 Responses to Things That I Will Ban When I Rule The World.

I am so with you on this! I was just thinking about it on Christmas Eve, when I was having a lovely evening with my parents, watching tv and drinking cocoa. It was completely idyllic until THAT COMMERCIAL came on tv. There’s nothing really to ruin a family evening by the herpes commercial. AND THEN! The one came on with the actor TELLING GUYS TO GET THEIR WOMAN A PAP SMEAR FOR CHRISTMAS. What, he wants a bunch of dead guys across the states?? I mean WHO WOULD DO THAT? Someone not in their right mind, obviously.

As soon as I started reading the post that “get a pap” ad came to mind. The first time I saw it I was cleaning the living room, I stopped dead and just stared at the screen in disbelief. I mean really…a pap smear? for jesus’ birthday? Hey ladies, nothing says Merry Christmas like a clean smear! NO NO NO NONONONONO.

I just looked at my husband and said “don’t you dare, or I’ll get you a colonoscopy”

The ASPCA ads are the absolute saddest thing on TV. Forget about Titanic, or Marley and Me. The text that appears on these poor animals is enough to make a butcher hang up his cleaver and adopt every cat in the tri-state area.

I would also take every single whiny twenty- or thirty-something poet-artist-musician-grad-student who was whining about their life not going anywhere or doing anything and forcibly enroll them in a Peace Corps Equivalent as hospital aides for a year. When they’re wiping poop off of sick people in a room with a dirt floor, maybe then they’ll stop whining about how they don’t have time to play XBox Rock Band ’cause they have to write new music for their REAL band.

…erm, this is not at all related to my breakup a week ago. No. Not at all.

I hate the ASPCA ads,also the starving children. I am wrecked for hours later. The penis enlargement commercials that they actor says is backed by “all this science”. Oh and I saw one for an abs in bed thing. They have a money back gaurantee, like someone who is too lazy to get out of bed to excersize is going to get off their ass, package the ab thing, go to the post office and mail that shit back.

Can we please ban the KY commercials? Look, I love me some KY as much as the next freak, but I don’t need to try and explain away the geyser reference to my 4 year old during a “Golden Girls” marathon, for fuck’s sake.

I would get rid of Viagra commercials & ads for stupid weight-loss machines that feature super-skinny models who don’t NEED the damn weight-loss machine in the first place. Tampon commercials and kotex commercials and condom commercials and those damn KY His-and-Her Lube commercials would all be GONE in my world.

Oh, and EVERY commercial that portrays parents as bumbling morons while the children are sarcastic & defiant and rude would be outta there, as well.

We got rid of cable and just watch shows online these days, so I can’t really comment on the current state of TV commercials (I’m sure they’re just as great as they were back when I used to watch them) but the PMDD commercials always bugged me (the ones with the lady throwing things at her husband and screaming “Just leave me alone!”)

Also, I read your post about Monistat, and I too am allergic to the stuff. I found that out right after inserting the super-strong 1 day treatment and slathering myself generously with the “clit cream”. Never before have I so wanted to claw off my own genitals

I don’t pay attention to commercials much, so they don’t bother me. I find car commercials as annoying as Valtrex commercials, so I try to just block them all out.

What would I ban? Hmmm, other than other people driving when I’m on the road? And my coworkers from existing? How about the cookies that my neighbor gave us for Christmas – they were some sort of chocolate covered soft gingerbread (or something) cookies, and they were the most revolting thing I’ve ever tasted in my whole life. It was like spices + sawdust + paste surrounded by bad chocolate. Now I need a drink…

The Geico Commercials. Because they have to play at least two in a row. And I’m sick of those stupid ass Cavemen, Yes we know you’re smarter then the ad says you are. I get it.
And Always commercials that tell you to have a “happy period” Really Always? Really.
Oh and I’m tired of other channels getting to advertise on all the other channels it confuses me when commercials for shows that are not on that channel come on. Is it just me? It’s just me. Never mind.
Can we just ban commercials all together?? That would be nice. I’ll still buy things, I don’t need to have a witty ad to tell me to get something I need.
OH! Wait, and that Audi commercial where they turned on their headlights instead of Christmas lights. I would have thrown rocks at their cars. And my house still would only have one string of lights on it, if that…
Okay I think I’m done!

Those fucking commercials that tell a man to give his woman a gift by scheduling her yearly GYN visit. That is the STUPIDEST ideas I have ever heard. I would kick someone’s ass if they scheduled a visit like that without consulting me.

I would ban those TV commercials that are so loud you jump for the remote to press the mute button. That and I would ban those “Smart Cookies” radio commercials that annoy the ever loving piss out of me.

I love commercials. They make me laugh. That herpes one does too. I actually know someone with herpes, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t tell people. That’s why you aren’t supposed to have sex with skanky crackwhores you meet in bars, children. Because nobody REALLY advertises it when they have an std.

I remember watching hockey with my dad as a kid and always wondering what the hell the “feminine protection” commercials where all about. Once I knew I wonder why the hell they advertised during hockey.

The commercial about men getting a pap smear for their women for Christmas is the worst, especially the last line of it “Show her it’s not what’s outside that counts, but what is inside.” Inside? Inside what???

Dan Savage, who is completely full of win, once had a talk about how, as a sex advice columnist, he used to get letters from people describing their sores to him. Now, thanks to the miracles of digital photography and email, he gets PICTURES. Sometimes, on an airplane when he’s sitting in the middle seat and is least expecting it…

So many haters – puhleeze! We should all say a blessing for accidentally funny commercials for intimate diseases, as well as drugs with side-effects that are worse than the condition they treat. Those things brighten my day; they’re the closest thing I have to evidence that God exists, and he loves me.

You see, if weren’t for people who are blissfully ignorant as to how ridiculous they sounded, we’d have no CNN,and Aunt Becky would have nothing to write about…

Wow – I’m lacing up for a victory lap. I discovered your blog the other day, and it is a bright light in a sea of dim bulbs. I intend comment often from now on, although I will pass on the three words I say to every new girlfriend: Lower. Your. Expectations.

We use the mute button in this house, because ALL commercials make us want to take a gun to the set. The mute button is much cheaper.

When I was in college, I was stupid and didn’t read the fine print so I had to take an upper level biology class to fulfill my science credit (I’m an English major, and stupid at all things science). The class was about human biology, but all I remember are the graphic slides of various STDs.

I recently relocated to an unnamed “RED” state (Go Big Red!) that has a ton of state anti-smoking commercials that feature only minorities. In their early 20’s. With small children. Because there are NOT old, fat, bald white men smoking on the prairie!!! Asshats.

I would ban the showing of those commercials as well as ANY pharmaceutical commercial. May they go the way of Camel and Marlboro ads.

Nobody ever asked me to rule the world but if enough someones should happen to slip and fall, I, Aunt Becky, will put a ban on all those neither region advertisements.

I would also do a whole lot more….but I’ll save that for when I’m running for office of the ruler of the world. Can’t share all my agenda topics or else someone might come up from behind and steal the seat from me and then where would you be?

I don’t mind the vag commercials so much as what they represent. Have you seen the new ad for the female version of Viagra? It’s one thing for men not being able to get it up (if it’s due to a physical condition). But in women, most often lack of sexual interest is tied to her relationship with her partner (often, not always).

I’m really getting tired of the commercial for incontinence products being secretly mailed to your home, in plain brown packaging (like porn, for old people). No one will ever know that you pee your pants but you. If this one doesn’t work/fit, we’ll send you new ones until they do, buy for less.

I also HAD a poo eating beast but let me tell you how you get the little sick-o to stop eating warm nugget treats, BANANAS!!!! Ceaser Millan said to try it so I did and it worked. So every other day or so all three doggies share a banana. If it works promise you will adopt another dog. Good luck. And thank you for the funny post. It made me laugh outloud.

It’s sick isn’t it, showing those commercials and then you have kids asking whats KY and my kid was walking around singing the Viagra song from one of those commercials. I agree, it should be banned from TV. Personal disease medications (or any drugs) and lube as well as get it up pills (for men and woman) should not be shown on TV. I’ve been asked “why does she have it and he doesn’t” . . by my 8 year old. That’s definitely for a blog post later. Have a good one.

You know what I really hate these days “Schedule a Pap Smear for your woman this holiday season” all over my TV. First of all…”Your Woman”???? and second…He better get me vacuum over scheduling me to get my plumbing checked…because SERIOUSLY??? A pap….For Christmas?!?!?! The hell?

I would ban the damn Beano ads! I don’t need to be reminded that my step dad needs to buy a jar everytime it comes on the TV. For pete’s sake…can we just have some commercials about antidepressants or something!

Ahh, I wouldnt ban them. They make me laugh. And if my niece or nephew asks about the said STD, I will tell the truth about what it is. Then tell them its what happens if you have the SEX! Before you are thirty!! (or married). Then I will giggle madly into my arm while my sister gives me a death stare.

This actually is a good answer for another post you made about what you wouldnt want your children to grow up doing. Well an actor for an STD commercial. Duh..

Things I would ban:
1. Most all commercials. Especially the newest one with Aunt Jackie talking about abused animals.
2. Skinny people joining gyms.
3. Trash w/ their trashy babies at WalMart at 1am.
4. Nebraska’s tanning ads: Low on Vitamin D? We’ve got it! (Not kidding.)
5. Any legitimate news source that blathers on about celebrities and telling me I should give a shit about why their life is hard.

Things I would enforce:
1. Homemade, warm cookies when I get home from work.
2. A new driving lane just for ME.
3. Getting the damn kids off the lawn with their bicycles and scooter-thingies.
4. Allowing Cookie Monster to eat only cookies. (Seriously, that is complete bullshit.)
5. Pajama Days – all day, every day.

Okay, seriously? There is a commercial telling people to give the gift of being violated under the rouse of being healthy for Christmas? I think I’ll take my 35 different suicide prevention commercials over that crap any day!

Also, I think that the nail fungus commercials should go away. Having a cartoon character who looks like a booger lift up a toenail and climb under (no matter HOW fake it all looks) completely grosses me out. The male enhancement commercials with that creepy ass smiling mofo should be banned as well.

I can’t watch ANY commercial that involves the ASPCA, Hallmark, or any of the sponsor a chid organizations. I bawl like a baby every time.

LMAO – “sores on your flipping meat curtains.” So gross and so funny. I think it’s even worse when the people in the herpes commercial dive into a pool. Great. Now the STD is water-born (I don’t care that supposedly you can’t get it that way – whatevs, it’s gross).

I would outlaw truck testicles. The metal/rubber nads that males with inferiority issues hang from the rear of their overly large flatbed trucks. I was stuck in traffic last week and had to watch a pair swinging in front of me for 20 minutes. They’re wretched!

Amen sister.
Men need to remember the ONLY people on this earth who think their testicles are “cute” are their wifes. I mean really why would we want to see a huge rubber pair of balls hanging on a stupid truck?
We dont!!
K? K.

I think I would ban all commercial mentions of boy parts and girl parts. Everything from Viagra and Vagisil to the latest STD meds to ‘menstrual cramps and bloating’ and all the in-between. Diapers might be ok, MAYBE.

Here in Denver (maybe elsewhere, I don’t know) there’s a new add suggesting that men get the special lady in their life a Pap smear. I do NOT want to HEAR ABOUT THAT!! I don’t know what I would do if my brother gave me an envelope with a coupon for a pap. I would probably die.

And I’ll echo the anti- smart cookies refrain.

And you know what? I would probably ban vampirey stuff too (I read your 2009 Year Of column). Or at least all references to Twilight, Team Edward or Team The Other Guy, creepy Twilight moms, etc. etc. Same goes for True Blood.

And nobody can use the word ‘fresh’ in an advertisement anymore. I am so tired of that word. So so so tired.

I would ban all tv preachers, reality shows, and basically any organized religion that makes you feel smugly superior or gives you the urge to spread the word. Then I would issue a giant fuck you to anybody who disagrees with me because Im the Decider of all that is to be banned bitches! (I may have had 3 gallons of Hateorade for lunch today)

Ok banning commercials that make me want to hurl. That mucus guy throwing his parties and having his family over supposedly in someones lungs until they grossly cough him out. EWWWWW! And the toe fungus guy that lifts the toe nail up and climbs in that almost caused mass barfage when I was pg with lil man. Finally that smily guy for the male enhancement drug or creme or whatever some on REALLY!

Anytime the commercials come on, and I get up to try do do something during my 3 minute break (like maybe pee) I have kids running in to tell me mom you gotta come see this. I want this thing soooo bad. Can you get it for my birtday (in 8 months!)

I so agree! And please add Erectile Dysfunction to the list. And stomach issues. And please, please, please do something about foot fungus adds (though that last one curbs my appetite for a few hours).

I’m right there with you… my nine year old daughter asked me “What is a four hour erection?” And in one the best parenting moments I’ve ever had I told her the complete and honest truth: “I have NO idea. I’ve never heard of or seen anything that sounds remotely like that.”

As an actress, I do a lot of commercials. I’m always having to audition for some humiliating thing or another. And I never get them because I just can’t take it seriously. I tend to snigger and roll my eyes. I mean, I don’t care how much they pay me, I don’t want to be “the woman who pees herself” on national tv. I did do a maxipad commercial once, many years ago. I actually had to say “It has tiny holes, like funnels, that draw the moisture through and trap it. So you stay cleaner. Drier. Always.” Lately, I’m always auditioning for Viagra or Cialis commercials and I have to eye my fake husband, with just the right mixture of classy horny and relief that he can finally get it up. Just humiliating.

I had to explain to my 7 yo daughter that singing “VIVA VIAGRA” at the top of her lungs in the pasta aisle wasn’t appropriate. And it’s not like she was watching some questionable TV show, she was watching baseball in the middle of the fricking afternoon!

I forgot one…The stinking ads for birth control with the girls sitting around trying to talk like women would in real life. I have never sat around a bar and discussed my birth control options with my friends. You?

Oh, any Erectile Dysfunction med ad, first because of the repeated hint of a 4 hour erection (YOU LYING FUCKS!), and second because when they call it E.D. I think they’re talking to me and it’s none of their god damn business.
Also the Christian Children’s Fund with that pompous ass asking for money. Nigga, you right there! Can’t you just give the kids a sandwich instead of paying all that money to hump that camera crew there and buy all the air time? WWJD? Apparently outsource.

I’ll let everyone else talk about commercials (since they already have) but will throw in that I was a wee bit jealous of the lady who got to have a catheter when I was hugely pregnant this summer with the twins. The thought of not having to hoist my ass out of bed and getting more than 20 minutes of sleep before having to pee again was very tempting.

However, I will comment on when I realized I was old. It was the summer before last, and my son threw me in the pool. When your kid is big enough to chuck his overweight mother into the deep end, fully clothed, you know you’re old.

OH! I thought of something else! When we lived in Hawaii, we’d get commercials all the freakin time for restaurants we didn’t have. I was pregnant three times in the four years I lived there, it did not make me a happy camper. I’d totally ban commercials for food you can’t get.

I would ban limp dick commercials and Muzak. I hate going into a store and hearing Muzak playing a song used for a STD commercial. Way back when, I once asked my doctor is viagra might be right for me. I should mention that I cannot biologically suffer from limp dick.

You and my bff would get along great… using meat curtains or her favorite piss flaps makes me want to hurl LOL.
I would get rid of the toe fungus commercial where the little green guy lifts up the big toe nail and crawls under it… that makes me cringe every time I see it. Oh and the “The Ring” commercial’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday EVERY DAAAYYYYYYY

Happy New Years to the Vodkas! You have been busy, busy. I am so with you on these lame ads for meds to treat herpes, erectile dysfunction, wrinkles, gosh, I miss the good old days when they advertised cigarettes on TV.

I would ban all the commercials on Nick, Cartoon Network, and all the other babysitter channels. Because my kids have been brainwashed by them and keep insisting that we need the tootpaste dispenser, Aquaglobes, and a bunch of toys that can be yours for 2 ez payments of more than they’re worth.

I’ve had about enough weightloss commercials. Americans are fat. Clearly, targeting the fatties via TV is a great plan, but since they’re on the couch, they’re clearly not following a weight-loss plan.

Right now, I would ban security tape on infant tylenol. Maybe not the whole “security” part, but couldn’t they please, please, PLEASE for the love of all that is holy NOT put clear plastic with teeny, tiny perforations on a white bottle and expect a sleep-deprived mother with a crying infant to be able to actual remove it?!?! I would make the strip NEON orange with fluorescent green arrows. And glow-in-the-dark.

I can’t think of anything I would ban, however, I think I would enforce a policy that demanded people wear signs aroudn their necks that describe them. For example: “I am a liar that will tell you anything you want to hear to your face and then turn around and do what I want to do.” “I have a huge sense of entitlement and will expect you to do everything for me.”

This will eliminate any confusion, and the rest of the world can act accordingly.

Genital sores is offensive to you? I got mad when Pizza Hut treated me like a retard by trying to convince me and entire family was blind folded, removed from their house, only to be brought back to their house and fed delicious pasta and be convinced they were in a fancy restaurant and not in their damn kitchen!!!

Talk to me about herpes all day, don’t treat me like an idiot!

And for the record, the last time I ate Pizza Hut I got food poisoning. So fuck that place! Valtrex FTW!

When I am King there will be no more commercials about Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, or any other product for dudes whose gear doesn’t work like it should. Dude, see a Doctor, ok?

When I am King, there will be no irresponsible political ads. If an ad is found to even slightly tainted with a twisted fact, the approving candidate will get his ass kicked, by me, on national television… and then shot… again, by me.

Oh, and Wliford Brimley will be banned from making any more commercials.

TV was supposed to be entertaining. It’s hardly ever that any more. I’d ban from the Internet more than ten self-development gurus, more than ten business blog advice-givers, and people who go on and on without getting to the point.

Auggie — Lots of dogs eat their poop, especially if there’s undigested food in it. Rabbits have to eat their poop because their stomachs can’t really digest their food the first time around. There’s stuff you can buy to put on Auggie’s food that will make his poop unpalatable. (Auggie-Doggy was one of my dog Gizmo’s nicknames. He had hundreds, though.)

ASPCA – I feel exactly the same way, knowing the millions of animals killed every year because people are stupid about animals.